Stories of Corn and Kindness
by Mariana Castro Azpíroz

At the Octagon Art Festival in Ames, my friend Marisol is doing letterpress demonstrations in one of the stands. They have it set up with the phrase “The world needs more,” and people get to choose how to fill in the blank. She then takes the letters and arranges them so that when participants turn the crank, they can print out their own sign to take home. Marisol asks me which word I’d like to print. I think about it for a while, and then answer “kindness.”

The word kindness comes from Old English gecynde, which means “generation, growing things.” Its root is cunde, meaning “natural, native, right, innate”. At its root, kindness is the natural thing. It’s the right thing to do. And it’s innate. Walking a winding path amidst the turmoil of the present day world, kindness is the best thing I can offer, but also what I most appreciate receiving. It is a form of nourishment and healing.

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The intro of the Apple TV documentary series Omnivore shows the contrast between Iowa’s industrial corn farming practices and traditional hand-grown corn techniques currently used by the Mayas in X’box, in the Yucatan peninsula. An animation takes the viewers through circles of corn fields with tractors and a train–the industrial world–then zooms in to show corncobs of different varieties and colors growing next to squash and beans, with various pollinators flying around–the traditional indigenous method. It depicts the complexities and entanglement of science and technology, ancestral wisdom, and modern tools; ecology and industrialization. What do we do with the knowledge and tools that we have? If anything, this documentary shows that the story that we decide to focus on can have a huge impact on sustainable practices and on our understanding what possibilities exist and what the consequences of the alternatives might be. How do we make the choices that will ultimately lead to nourishing the people and the land?

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Growing up in Mexico I heard the phrase “we are the offspring of corn” many times. The “Popol Vuh,” or “Book of Counsel,” is a sacred Mayan text that contains wisdom, history, beliefs, and traditions of the K’iche people. According to the “Popol Vuh,” humanity originated from corn. It tells the story of how the gods made a dough from it and used it to create four initial people, who then explored the world and thanked the gods for creating them. The text says they told the gods, “We speak, we hear, we think, and we walk; we feel perfectly, and we know what is far and what is near. We also see the big and the small in the sky and the earth.” These people knew how to see, how to listen. They appreciated the world—from the tiny to the large—and they did it with their senses, without the need for any tools or machinery. But this, the gods did not like. As the story goes, the gods were afraid that humans knew too much. They feared that humans would believe themselves equals to deities, so they blew mist on their eyes, which made them unable to see what was far. Only what was close remained clear. When did we lose clarity? What has been blurred by the mist? Was it then that we stopped noticing how everything was interconnected?
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At the Jeffers Petroglyphs in Minnesota, on sacred Dakota land, I wander through the walking trail with no particular route in mind. To my surprise, I arrive at a sign that describes teocintle, the original plant from which corn evolved, which was then bred by Indigenous peoples in Mexico until it derived into all the varieties that currently exist. I write in the nature journal that I’m carrying with me: “The story of teocintle is a nice place where western science and Indigenous knowledge can—for a minute—speak the same language.”

Ten thousand years ago, there was only teocintle, a plant that looks like corn, but produces just five to eight kernels per cob, organized in two rows and protected by a hard membrane. Indigenous peoples bred it selectively until they were able to cultivate the large cobs with delicious kernels that we know today. Mexico is still home to the greatest biodiversity of teocintle varieties. Corn-teocintle natural hybrids exist as well, and 64 corn varieties are currently grown in the country.

Each variety of corn adapted to the specific local weather, soil, and even pest conditions of the place where it was originally bred. In Mexico, corn has been grown in humid, dry, cold, and warm conditions; at altitudes ranging from sea level up to 11,500 feet. This outstanding pool of genetic diversity reveals a promising story of adaptability in the face of climate change. Fifty-nine corn varieties are native to Mexico, but they are unfortunately threatened by agro-industrial varieties. What if instead of growing acres and acres of sweet yellow corn, each region would grow their own version, locally? The one that thrives in whichever conditions exist in their place and time.

Etymologically, the word for corn in Spanish, maíz, means “sustenance”. In Tzeltal, one of languages spoken by the Maya, the word for person translates to “bone of maize,” showing how deeply connected corn is to their concept of sustenance, life, and even sense of self. A Maya farmer interviewed in Omnivore, Ricardo Piña Cab, mentions their worldview on how corn and humans are intimately linked: “They say that on the day that corn runs out, people will also disappear, little by little.” For many Mesoamerican cultures, corn is synonymous or at least closely linked to life and people, which leads to a sense of respect, care, reciprocity, kinship, and belonging. It fosters horizontal relationships with the environment, following a similar notion to what academics refer to as Deep Ecology, which recognizes the intrinsic worth of all living beings and elements of ecosystems (forests, rivers, etc.), beyond human benefit.

The reason why native communities were so successful in building their sustenance around corn is because they did not rely on the monoculture fields that cover most of Iowa. Instead, indigenous groups across Mexico and Guatemala use an agroecological system called the milpa. A similar technique using companion planting is known by Native Americans as the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash. The teocintle sign at the Jeffers petroglyphs was next to a description of the traditional local cultivation of the Three Sisters, telling a story of care and nourishment.

It is no coincidence that these plants have been grown together throughout the continent. People noticed that they have reciprocal relationships. Beans (legumes, in general) are nitrogen fixing plants, meaning that they can take nitrogen from the atmosphere and then deposit it in the soil in a form that serves as nutrients for other plants. In other words, legumes make the soil healthy and turn it into fertilizer. But beans need a structure on which to grow. Corn offers that. Squash has large leaves that store water and prevent the growth of plants that might disrupt this positive network of relationships (the so-called weed control).

The milpa is a more complex form of polyculture. It can include diverse species of beans, squash, chili peppers, and tomatoes. It also fosters the growth of native species such as turnip, parsley, and other ornamental and medicinal plants. This vegetation controls pests, nourishes the soil, and attracts pollinators. Additionally, a diet based on the plants that grow on the milpa has great nutritional value (and taste). No one makes a better case for this than Mexicans, because we have created at least 600 dishes based on corn (okay, maybe we went a little overboard). The average Mexican consumes 322 pounds of corn a year, mainly in the form of tortillas. The blue ones are definitely the best.

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“The world needs more kindness,” has two readings. It is true that the world is overflowing with stories of inequality, violence, and disruption. Stories that need to be told to bring about social and environmental justice, and to decrease the acts of aggression. But in order to heal and grow, we also need hope. We can’t let the sea of hostile headlines drown all the other stories. The statement I printed in my letterpress sign suggests that there isn’t enough kindness in the world. Even though we certainly could do with more of it, the second reading is: the world needs more spotlights on kindness, to discover that it already manifests in many more shapes, sizes, and sources than we care to imagine. Stories of healing and caretaking the land and the people.

Like the stories of farmers who know how to listen and who can see more than what is closest to their eyes; stories where wonder and gratitude survive. I know women who own and caretake land in Iowa who are planting prairie strips, cover crops, and eliminating tillage on their farms. These are stories of healing. The Traspatio Maya collective showcased in Omnivore has helped connect milpa farmers with restaurants across the world. Even though they themselves use traditional hand-farming methods, without any machines, they use modern techniques for better distribution channels and connect through social media to ensure that their sustainable corn reaches a wider population. These are stories that demonstrate alternatives combining ancient wisdom and modern tools for the better.

Ricardo explains the milpa with language that is loaded with love and care. As I watch the episode, I can’t help but smile. “The bean plant is used to hugging when it sprouts. The bean wraps tightly around each corncob, so it doesn’t fall. Like a newlywed: hugging all the time, kissing. That is how the seeds we are planting here are. They have to be planted with other seed varieties so that they can hug when the beautiful seeds sprout. And when everything dies [at the end of the season] and we plant again, it becomes fertilizer. It helps the land a lot when it is very tired.” I appreciate the understanding of the interconnections between plants, land, humans, and ecological cycles. I like the subtle animacy of the land being tired and getting help from the dying plants. I enjoy this narrative.

All living beings and human-land relationships are intertwined in complex ways, but there are stories that teach us how to frame these connections differently, through care—both for people and the environment. Maybe we can learn to unravel from some of the problematic relationships by engaging in more nurturing ones, through kindness. Maybe we can take some of the burden off dealing with these entanglements by picturing them like Ricardo’s description of the corn and the bean plants.
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Mariana Castro Azpíroz is an emerging writer and collage artist born and raised in Mexico City, currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State University. Her writing explores how language both reflects and shapes the way we see the world, seeks to challenge it, and imagines alternative ways to reframe it through a lens of hope and ethics of care. She explores themes of kinship, sustainability, and environmental language and highlights the value of engaging with the seasons and building community as ways of grounding and dealing with climate grief and uncertainty.

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Artist Statement: My essay was inspired by my experience living in Iowa for the past two and a half years and being involved in projects centered around community building and sustainable practices, as well as my cultural background as a Mexican. In my piece, I explore the etymological origins of some of the concepts woven throughout it, the meaning they carry and what they reflect about our understanding of complex ecological relationships. I describe some of the elements that nourish the land and people, and highlight themes of community, growth, and sustenance. My hope is that my audiences pause to think more deeply about the complex entanglements between networks of living beings (including humans) and ecological cycles. I want to shine a light on what is possible so that collectively, we can imagine new and healthier ways to relate to the world and to each other.

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Featured Image: Photo by Boglárka Salamon, 2023